Donne - FORM / STRUCTURE / CONTEXT / CRITICAL INTERPRETATIONS

FORM - Irregular iambic pentameter implies jarring dissonance in the thoughts of the speaker - INFERIORITY COMPLEX

CRITICAL INTERPRETATION - "Donne regards his soul as female" (John Carey), his own soul is a female trapped in an unhappy marriage, needs another (God) to overwhelm her and take her away

Represents the peak of Donne's conflict between secular and religious life, and his efforts to reconcile his new found sacred love with the more familiar, earthly love.

Constant friction between the sacred ("Three-person'd God") and the profane ("ravish", "chaste")

Original version had no comma in first line - changes entire meaning of poem

Uses the Renaissance idea of sleep as death's image

"Donne's constant use of the belittling and ridiculing tone throughout the poem is indicative of his defiant stance towards death" - Fraser Small

"Shows anxiety about the permanence of human relationships" - John Carey

Use of spondaic detrameter

Use of rhyming triplet, giving the poem a lilting, sing-song quality - goes with the title.

Subverted use of adunata to represent the impossibility of finding a faithful woman

Alternative interpretation - Donne is mocking Petrarchan poetry, rather than woman

"Life from crown to sole" - Coleridge

Three equally weighted stanzas imply a sense of certainty

Opposition between the speaker's disengaged jaded attitude, and varying line lengths which indicate passion and emotion

Structure -
Stanza 1: Whimsical and contemplative
Stanza 2: Becomes more absurd, pace quickens
Stanza 3: Slowing, reversal of argument

Alludes to the Elizabethan concept of blood being exchanged during sex

Semantic field of religion is emphasised as it seems out of place in a highly profane poem - could be seen as blasphemous, or as elevating the poem to seriousness

Use of opposites such as: innocence/guilt, chastity/sexuality, sex/religion

"About the most merely disgusting poem in our language" - Arthur Quiller-Couch

Use of geographic semantic field - AO4: Renaissance voyages and exploration of the world (macro) and inner exploration of love and the self (micro).

Alludes to the cordiform map to link their love and the universe

"The two lovers create a whole and one is incomplete without the other" - Thomas N Corns

An AUBADE and CELEBRATION

Restrained and controlled Spenserian stanzas in iambic pentameter

Each stanza ends on an Alexandrine (6 iambic feet) - suggests his lover has brought his stability

Structure -
First experience of love is childish, fleeting, and unstable
Second experience of love is richer, more spiritual

Alludes to the Age of Discovery - celebrating a new beginning (new day/new world)

One of Donne's earliest poems

Regular rhyme scheme - adds to underlying tone of wry wit/irony
Irregular line length

Similar to a Madrigal

Use of inclusive plural pronouns makes the poem more loving and inclusive than, for example, The Flea

"Fired by [Donne's] ambivalence about Catholicism" - Carol Rumen

Donne talks about judgement day "with no awesome solemnity" - James Winny

Assumes a geocentric view of the world (sun orbits earth), rather an a heliocentric view (planets orbit sun), which had been developed around 20 years before Donne started writing

The opening line both utilises and challenges the aubade form

Form - cross between a Shakespearean and Spenserian Sonnet - unique, or confused?

Can be read as a glorious love poem, but with darker undertones of objectification and male possessiveness - the woman is reduced to an erotically sexualised acquisition.

"All consuming super reality" - Richard Jacobs

Use of a microcosmic conceit - their love represents the universe

Alludes to Donne's apostasy and his erotic poetry

Only poem Donne had set to music and sung at St Paul's Cathedral

Structure -
Three controlled sestets - suggests he is in control of his thoughts - counteracts doubt about his divine worth

Exploration of the via affirmative and via negativa

Alludes to the Calvinist belief of pre-destination

Opening of the poem takes an accusatory tone - unusual for the Dean of St Paul's. Reflects Donne's complicated relationship with faith and religion

Octave - imagery associated with moving backwards
Sestet - imagery associated with moving upwards
Some critics argue this gives the poem a cross-like structure

Use of the chiastic form (A B B1 A1) reinforces the panicked two-way motion

Use of rhyming couplet - Shakespearian ending